


A Modern Babylon

by gardnerhill



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, Challenges, Community: great_tales, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-25
Updated: 2013-02-25
Packaged: 2017-12-03 13:51:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/698945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gardnerhill/pseuds/gardnerhill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Age does not wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Modern Babylon

**Author's Note:**

> For the LJ comm Great Tales' Challenge # 202 for Valentine's Day.

She is much altered since I saw her last. 

Buildings of glass and steel loom overhead, mocking the puny erections of Sir Christopher Wren, a man-made thicket through which Lestrade flies her car like a madman on a runaway horse. Familiar landmarks are altered or missing. Even the Thames smells differently – no longer like the world's longest open sewer. 

People live here from all over the world – the Inspector herself carries the dialect of the south-western United States even as her genes carry the memory of a certain rat-faced, Cockney-born police detective. Through her stride women as well as men, every skin color and language and dialect on the planet, servant machines, horses now only in zoos, concrete and not cobblestones. 

And yet… 

Crime hides in her shadows, by petty thief and master plotter alike, as it has done since the Romans called her _Londinivm_. People bustle to work and home again, carrying umbrellas against the inevitable rain. The streets and alleys of my day are gone, but new warrens and flyways mimic their predecessors – I need re-learn little. Strange-looking new bridges span the river, as memorable as the Tower Bridge in its heyday. And everything stops for a cup of tea. 

She is still the town I love. And she still needs me. 

**Author's Note:**

> _London is a modern Babylon. **-Benjamin Disraeli**_


End file.
